Kevin Keatts’ Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Loss at Wake Forest

NC State Head Coach Kevin Keatts’ met with the media for his postgame press conference after the Wolfpack lost at Wake Forest today. You can read the transcript below.

First of all, is there an update on Mike James? Second of all, you guys got it close. I think it was two points, and then the slippage in the second half. What do you attribute that to?

A couple things. Mike James, we were able to throw him in a couple drills. He’s had some pretty bad luck, I’m not telling you that he’s ready to get on the floor and play, but the next day, he was sick, came in with probably 102 temperature. So we’ve had to kind of back off his recovery just to make sure he’s OK.

I think the most frustrating thing about our group right now is that we have put ourselves in so many different deficits throughout the entire year.

Nothing different than what’s been happening this year. In this game right here, we dug such a big hole, and I don’t want to be known as the comeback team.

We’ve got to figure out how to get off to good starts. I thought we had a great start at UVA, and then what’s happening is we’re finding different ways to lose games.

One of the things we’ve got to do is we’ve got to get very consistent. The one thing about our program, this year’s team, is we’re not consistent right now, and that’s not just from offense to defense, but not consistent with what we’re getting from each player, each game.

One game, one of our guys will have a good game, then the other one, somebody else may have a good game. So I’m looking for more consistency to help us as we move forward.

What was specifically the frustration where you got the Tech? A lot of people thought you might have gotten thrown out in the moment. Were you surprised you were able to stay in the game?

No, after Efton Reed got two fouls in the first half, I thought they did everything they could in the second half to make sure he wouldn’t get a third or a fourth. I thought it was as simple as that.

I thought the play that I got the technical foul on, I thought was, I didn’t think he was vertical. We always talk about being vertical. I thought his arms came down on our guys.

What did they tell you?

You know, they made the call, and it is what it is, and I accept the call. I disagree with it, and I got the technical foul. That’s how it works in basketball.

If you don’t like it, you are good, and you probably won’t get a technical foul, and I got one.

I asked the guys this, but y’all have given up 50% or more in three of the last four games. What is it going to take to clean that up?

I think we have to get connected defensively.

We’re having, this particular group is having too many breakdowns. One of our biggest things is we haven’t been able to take how we practice and how we clean up things in practice, and then when we get in a game situation, we haven’t gotten better at it. We’ve got to continue.

We’ve scripted, and we’ve changed the way that we practice a little bit. We’re doing more four-on-four segments so we can play in game situations. We just got to continue to show.

We got to continue to show film. We got to continue to get better. I just thought we had too many breakdowns on ball screen covers.

I thought we did a really good job guarding and waiting for us in initial sets, and then late shot clock is when I thought we had too many breakdowns.

Kind of going off that, there’s points in game where they kind of just lose focus and the other team takes advantage. From your point of view, what leads to that?

Teams are different, and we’ve got so many new pieces, and I get it.

So many other people do, too, but we’re still trying to learn each other, and we got to learn each other really quick. We’re having too many breakdowns as a group. We foul a guy with two seconds going down, and we drive a gap.

I know we fouled a couple times on that, or at least got called fouls. We’ve done some things at the end of shot clock instead of being solid. We’ve done some things that really haven’t helped us.

The bad thing about it is, we’re losing games because of it. The good thing about it, if we clean it up, then obviously we’ll win those games.

What has been the issue on offense these past two second halves?

It’s weird because if you look at it, we’ve shared the ball in both halves at the beginning. You can take the stats sheet and look at it. I think at half, we had seven assists in the first half, and for whatever reason, the ball sticks in the second half.

We’re trying to run more sets in the second half so the ball doesn’t stick, so we don’t get to become individuals. I think with this particular group, we’ve got a couple of things going on when we get behind because everybody’s trying to figure out who they are. We’ve got some guys that they have to take it upon their shoulders to bring it back, which leads to a lot of tough shots.

I thought in the first half of both Virginia and Wake, I thought we really, really shared the basketball. In the second half, we didn’t. We’re going to figure it out.

It’s early in the season. I know this. We’ve got three games into the ACC.

We’ve got to figure it out. We’ve got to figure it out, and we will figure it out.

You mentioned the lead at Virginia, sharing the ball, doing well. How do you sustain that? My second question is, Notre Dame and Carolina coming up, is this sort of a take a stand type of week coming up?

We’ve got to get back, and we’ll take tomorrow off. Then we’ve got to get in the gym, and really the only focus that we have is Notre Dame. We have to figure out how to put together a couple halves of basketball.

I would even say we probably have played 25 to 30 minutes of good basketball in each game. We haven’t reached the point where we’ve got to 37, 38, 39, 40, even back it down, let’s just say 32 minutes of good basketball. If you take segments out of our games, we’re really good, but we haven’t been able to sustain it for the entirety. It’s a little bit of everything. We’ve got to get better in certain areas, but it’s a little bit of everything that’s hurting us.

Today it felt like a team in us who really takes care of the basketball. I thought we had some bad turnovers, had some bad situations in bad times. A team that’s really done a good job of defending with a three-point line, and we still only gave up six, but I thought it was in certain moments we gave up a couple big threes that we didn’t need to give up, and we forced a couple things.